Saturday, January 9, 2016
PSYCHOanalysis
Masochism is "the tendency to derive pleasure, especially sexual gratification, from one's own pain or humiliation." We came to the conclusion the other day in class that the Underground Man exhibits masochistic qualities, especially in Part I. When we are first introduced to UM, we learn that he really actually does get some sort of enjoyment from bringing pain among himself. More importantly, he even says he would "feel unending pleasure if [he] succeeded in causing someone distress." UM suffers too many dilemmas and I don't know whether to feel bad for him or not... The people he tries to interact with are the ones he claims to despise; he's self-loathing but also narcissistic; he feels underneath people while at the same time thinks he's intellectually superior. He's also incredibly isolated and socially inept, but he's pessimistic and doesn't make an effort to take action because his thinking and analysis incapacitates him. Some of UM's analysis would certainly make one feel a little uncomfortable. He's very obsessive to the point where he drives himself crazy. Like he said in the beginning, he's definitely a "sick" man, but can we really blame the liver?
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4 comments:
Honestly, I think UM is insane. He really annoys me with his wimping and whining about not having friends, but the whole reason he doesnt have any friends is because he is mean to them and pushes them away as soon as he gets close to them! He also constantly is trying to spite either himself or someone else for his own gratification. There is clearly something wrong here. His pessimistic attitude toward the whole world and every situation he is in is sad from an outside point of view, but also kid of annoying. I just wish UM would get over himself and stop feeling so self-pitying, and take a stand to make his own life better and positively enhance the community.
The fact that the underground man wanted to get into a fight was so strange and harmful to himself. The Underground man has some serious health issues and I'm not talking about his liver, as Abby mentioned, but a different organ, the brain. UM doesn't hurt himself physically but mentally because he purposefully inactivated his lifes, hurting his mind by becoming obsessive.
Although the underground man tries to convince us that he wants to be alone and miserable, I do not believe it. He indirectly claims that making these decisions to isolate himself and bring down others makes him happy. To me, he seems extremely miserable because of his lifestyle, but he is just so used to making the types of decisions that he does that nothing changes even though he is extremely unhappy. Hypothetically, I think that the underground man and Liza could've possibly flourished with each other and could have had a much happier life together. However, once the underground man starts feeling these emotions, he is so unaccustomed to how it feels and the results it produces, that he quickly shuts it down and pushes Liza out of his life. He is used to being rude to others and so that's exactly what he does, despite the good Liza could have done in his life.
While I agree the UM is masochistic and finds fulfillment from causing himself pain, he also seems kind of sadistic in the way he wants to dominate over someone else and then trash them to the side, but in a way I think this is also his masochistic side, because by doing these terribly manipulative things to anyone he gets close to, he ensures that they can't get too close to him by dominating over them and giving them no power to help him and really be someone he relies on. I'm sure there's a very good possibility that UM is mentally ill and would be on a ton of medications in today's society. At any rate, he needs some help but it doesn't seem like he's going to get it.
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